Keeping track of whats on the film (dates and places)

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gunnar

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I like to tag my digital photos with dates and places where they were taken and its difficult with film. While I can recall the place most of time by looking at the picture, telling date is very hard.

I send my films off in large batches to AG and get back just a set of developed negatives with their own reference numbers, so even if I did have notes on the canisters/spools they would get lost anyway.

With 35mm problem could be partly solved by using a waste frame to photograph a date written on a piece of paper. But event then o often use the same roll over several weeks depending on how much timeand inspiration I have.

I was thinking of keeping notes, but then how to identify an individual film? Just writing e.g. ColorPlus is going to be useless as I use a lot of those.

Has anyone come up with a reliable system?
 
There are apps which can help. I’ll let others dive in with details, as I don’t use one myself. The ideal solution is a camera with a date back, some of which also print the exposure details below the frames. Examples of these are the Contax G2 and Fuji GA645zi.
 
gunnar said:
I like to tag my digital photos with dates and places where they were taken and its difficult with film. While I can recall the place most of time by looking at the picture, telling date is very hard.

I send my films off in large batches to AG and get back just a set of developed negatives with their own reference numbers, so even if I did have notes on the canisters/spools they would get lost anyway.

With 35mm problem could be partly solved by using a waste frame to photograph a date written on a piece of paper. But event then o often use the same roll over several weeks depending on how much timeand inspiration I have.

I was thinking of keeping notes, but then how to identify an individual film? Just writing e.g. ColorPlus is going to be useless as I use a lot of those.

Has anyone come up with a reliable system?
Click to expand...

Well I copy jpgs to my computer hard disks and when creating a directory (folder) you can put a basic heading film and lens used (or more) and a number on the computer directory the same as on the folder where negs are kept\stored (so I can find the negs if wanted) and also add info on the individual jpgs ...this only works if you are willing to put in the time to do this. You have a date when the directory was first created so that helps for the year the shot was taken, but must admit for the first few hundred shots used to put stacks of details in but as the years go by put in less info cos I'm too lazy :(
 
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Keep notes for each film - even I could sort out which film corresponded to the notes and my memory's crap!
 
gunnar said:
With 35mm problem could be partly solved by using a waste frame to photograph a date written on a piece of paper. But event then o often use the same roll over several weeks depending on how much timeand inspiration I have.
Click to expand...
When I started using colour film again a couple of years ago, I would always use 1 frame for a mirror shot to show what camera it was taken on. Since I was trying out a few different cameras, (including 3 Olympus compacts with 35mm lenses!), it was the only way to know what camera I had used. I never considered that single frame to be a waste. By all means keep a separate note for when the film was loaded and finished, but the camera shot will help if you are using different cameras at different times.

On my home developed b&w films, I've taken to writing details of the camera and processing on the margin of the Kenro negative sheets as this is the place they are least likely to get lost.
 
I dunno, I kinda feel its something you can learn to let go of, like not having a screen to chimp or no control over iso or whatever.
Film is a completely different method of making a picture and it takes some adjustment to become comfortable working within its structure if you're used to a digital experience.
Whilst its nice to have a million different details wrapped up with the image you shot, it all seems a bit overkill to me.
Back in the day, you'd make notes if you were that bothered, and that is a discipline in itself.
Personally I'm fine with date of scan, I don't need to know the exact date/time/lens length/app/shutter speed/geoflippintagging.

I may not have felt this way when I was shooting digital though..:)
 
as long as I can narrow it down to what year im happy ,,,,as for film ,,,,,its Ilford hp5+ .
 
Even though I mostly dev my own I still like to keep track though with varying levels of detail. 35mm I write camera and date started with a fine sharpie on the leader. 120 I write on the backing paper. If I want more detail on particular frames I either use the 'Analog' app on my smartphone (it also has light meter and other functions) or I do have printed film exposure sheets. As I usually dev more than one film at a time, for 35mm I prick a ref number in film after trimming leader and add details to my hardback film log, 120 is not as easy (some tape labels like the labs use I would like to find).

The ref number date and basic details also go on the neg storage sheets and the number of the storage folder back in the log book.
 
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I used to put the end of the film box in the slot on the back of the camera and note what was on the the film (what job etc) any more and it would go in a notebook.
 
eos-1v and the incredibly rare and tough to get working on modern kit ES-E1 software/cable.

failing that, an app for the frame by fame details and a "tag frame 0" at the start of the roll with date loaded details.
 
joxby said:
its something you can learn to let go of, like not having a screen to chimp or no control over iso or whatever.
Click to expand...

^^THIS^^

I do note details when shooting Large Format when out in the field and if after developing the sheet of film I choose to print and keep the result, I may scrawl a couple of details on the negative sleeve.. If I forget then it's no big deal.

For smaller formats, the only details that I might note on the negative sleeve would be a rough idea of date ( bear in mind I could load a roll of film today and not finish it for several months so the details would be for eg Jan 2019 - Sept 2019, so so film, so so camera, again that's even if I could be bothered or even remembered.

As joxby says, keeping a million details can be overkill.
I have done it and tbh I don't think I referred back to any of the details for my own benefit….If anything they sometimes offered a helpful response to someone elses queriy on here but nothing more than that.

Nowadays I would sooner use the time taken to write notes more constructively….like learning how to improve my photography skills.

EDIT: Just to add I can't recall the last time I referred to any exif details of digi shots that I've taken either
 
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I often take a pic with the mobile of something I'll also take on film then I've got something to go on.

There's a good iPhone diary app called Day One. It logs where you are so you can just make an entry in that with the camera and film if you want.
 
I don't have a system that will do what I think you want, and never have had. My earliest 35mm films were either Kodachrome (very rare) in which case Kodak stamped the processing date on the slide mount, or black and white negatives which I developed myself. These latter are kept in Paterson negative files, together with a contact sheet; and I wrote the date and any other relevant info on the sheet. I have never ever made a note of aperture or shutter speed.

With large format, the nearest I can come to supplying exif data is knowing that I almost invariably use f/16, and that I can usually remember the conditions under which the photograph was taken to extrapolate the shutter speed pretty well. One of the advantages of using a separate light meter is that you are forced to take note of the readings, and soon can estimate what it's going to say pretty well.

Scans are filed according to the negative file number of page within it if medium format; thus MFC01-001 is the first negative on the first page of the binder MFC01 (Medium Format Colour 01). With large format, it's simply the negative number, so LF01-001 is the first negative in the LF01 binder. The scans usually have something descriptive in the directory name; and I also keep separate directories of contact sheets generated by CS2.
 
I made a notebook in Blurb. 62 pages for the princely sum of £2.80. It's designed for medium format & 12 shots per roll. I find it useful to get a "feel" of how film performs - especially the IR films, and it's useful to note any bracketing. It's also got a reciprocity failure table at the back.

With 35mm I don't bother with all that effort and just give the negs a filename on scan of scandate_filmnameandISO_cameraname. I put a sticker on the neg sleeve with the same info and a very short description of the location. Film is never sat around in the camera for too long.
 
A few late model AF SLRs were able to collect shooting data electronically. Some of these included the date (which may or may not require a databack, depending on whether the camera had its own internal clock). The original software was discontinued years ago and may not be compatible with current computers, but there's now a third party package that allows you to access it:

http://www.meta35.com/cameras/

e.g. it looks like the Nikon F6 does this without a databack, the F5 requires one, and the F100 can't store date/time at all (since the clock in its optional databack doesn't communicate with the data store).
 
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